Official and extra official classification: race and colour under discussion

Abstract

This article aims to show a historical panorama and a theoretical synthesis about how color category became the favoured aspect of the perception of difference among brazilian social groups, as well as the scientific speech and the common sense to express it in the country. We intend to understand how that category was used to supply some limits and possibilities for ideas of nation and citizenship in Brazil, as from the official and extra official classification systems, from 1870 until 1990.